Legendary Locals of the Southern Berkshires
By Gary Leveille
127 pp. Arcadia Publishing, $21.99
In this, our Age of Anxiety, it is not surprising that even our rural corner of Western Massachusetts should be suffering from an identity crisis.
The signs are not hard to find.
Local election campaigns now pit “the folks” against the incursion of “outsiders” with their alien ways and expectations. If residential neighborhoods in Great Barrington are plagued by speeders, it must be the “tourists” who are racing down the streets. Never mind that we were all “outsiders,” “visitors” or “immigrants” at one point in our personal or family history, or that many Berkshire towns rely upon the property taxes of “outsiders” who, incidentally, are not eligible to vote at town meetings — until, that is, they decide the Berkshires are just the place to raise a family or retire.
In this crucible of discontent the fundamental question being asked in all but words, in Great Barrington, Egremont, Sheffield, Monterey, Alford, Stockbridge, Tyringham, West Stockbridge, New Marlborough, Sandisfield, Otis and Mt. Washington – is: Who are we?
The answer, at least in part, to who we are now may be found by looking at who we were and have been, and continue to be. These perspectives are blended in “Legendary Locals of the Southern Berkshires,” a remarkable collection of photographs and biographies assembled by historian Gary Leveille.
By “Southern Berkshires” Leveille means the towns comprising the Berkshire Hills, Southern Berkshire and Farmington River regional school districts.
In its 127 pages containing 150 profiles, and references to many more South Berkshire residents, past and present, the answers to who we are may surprise you. There’s an astronaut, a counterfeiter, shopkeepers (a fabulous photo of the young Stephen Bannon at his family-owned Bill’s Pharmacy), police chiefs, trash haulers, psychoanalysts. And generals (who recalls that the renowned World War I general, Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell grew up in Great Barrington?), a blacksmith who mastered 50 languages, industrialists, writers, rabbis, priests, farmers, inventors, and musicians (yes, Yo Yo Ma, and Arlo Guthrie are here, plus that dynamo of a pianist and the youngest to be accepted as a Tanglewood fellow, Hilda Banks Shapiro). And then there’s the Hermit of Hartsville who claims to have the world record for insomniacs: 40 years.
And then there’s Leveille’s top ten list of the most significant historical figures influencing the character of South County. Heading the list are two African Americans, the writer and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois and Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman, whose lawsuit shortly after the Revolutionary War effectively abolished slavery in Massachusetts.
In Leveille’s list, Du Bois and Freeman come before such notables as Norman Rockwell, William Cullen Bryant, Cyrus Field, William Stanley and Daniel Chester French.
As Robert Tepper, vice president of the Great Barrington Historical Society observes in his admiring review of “Local Legends,”
“Famous folks from the past and notable neighbors from the present leap from the pages of a new local history book entitled Legendary Locals of the Southern Berkshires. Some were born here, but found fame elsewhere. Others were born in or moved to the Berkshires and made a name for themselves here.
“The book includes a careful blend of historical figures (80 percent) and contemporary personalities (20 percent) from the dozen South County towns.
“It seems that every town in South Berkshire has been home to an amazing array of accomplished citizenry. For example, Anson Jones was a dirt-poor farm boy from Great Barrington who went on to become a doctor, and then the president of a country – the Republic of Texas, before it was annexed to the United States. Cyrus Field from Stockbridge changed the world as father of the first transatlantic communications cable.”
Does Leveille have any favorites among those he profiled?
“One of those who stood out, in my mind, was Story Musgrave, the astronaut,’ Leveille explained. “He was raised on a farm in Stockbridge, now the home of the Norman Rockwell Museum, By the age of 10 he was repairing tractors and farm machinery. Then he ends up fixing the Hubble telescope. He grew up in an environment of alcohol and abuse, and escaped to the woods and fields whenever he could. He learned to fly at the age of 16. He became a physician, specializing in aerospace medicine, and also earned graduate degrees in mathematics, computers, chemistry, literature and psychology. He was the lead spacewalker on the Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.”
Another favorite, he said, was the writer, Catharine Sedgwick (1789-1867) of Stockbridge. “She lived in the mid-1800s,” he observed, “and was very successful but was way before her time. She was a pioneer of the women’s movement.”
And he also admires Rachel Fletcher, the stage designer, environmental activist and mathematician, founding director of the Housatonic River Walk, advocate for the W.E.B. Du Bois Boyhood Homesite.
“She brings out the best in people, young and old together,” Leveille noted.
He added: “There are so many incredibly interesting people who have lived here for the past 200 years.”
And it is Leveille’s embrace of the lives of the people of South Berkshire, past and present, that helps us understand who we are, and, more importantly, what we can be.
